Tuesday

A couple of days ago Egilpatr sent me a message and during our conversation she told me that she was selling her beautiful artwork at a new shopping venue called 1000Markets.I peeked into her shop and fell in love with this very different style of selling. I had just joined Twitter (by the way twitter is a wonderful marketing tool) and thought...oh no....another place to steal my time away.

As I looked around I thought, well this IS different. This "market" puts an entirely different spin on the way we think about selling and shopping. I think the spin is perfect for the way people do things in todays social networking, internet, twittering, way. The plan is to develop Markets. Here are some of the current and planned markets:

The Grande ArcadeArtisans from the San Juan IslandsFoodcraftersHandmade HeavenEverything is taken into account when you submit your shop for review and acceptance. Photographs, policies, descriptions and creativity. When I built my shop I uploaded my normal avatar and pictures of my products. The next morning I received a very nice email from Matt asking me to increase the size of my avatar and use a higher resolution picture, since the one I used was a bit out of focus. As you will notice, it is still the same style of my current avatar, but a different picture.

The fee structure is reasonable and they use Amazon Payments to process your orders. No fee's are collected until you make a sale. Then it's 5.5% plus .50. They have branded this type of fee scheduled as MarketSimple Pricing. It seems pretty simple to me.

Matt and John have put a lot of thought into 1000Markets and the entire philosphy of selling is much different than other selling venues. If you want to understand more about this philosphy read the About page on 1000Markets.I read more in the community forums about the quality that 1000Markets is looking for. It makes me feel good that each shop submission is reviewed by Matt (owner) for quality. You are told what you need to do to be accepted and if you have more questions either Matt, John, or other members will help you. I love the feel of community and do realize as this site grows, it may not be so easy to talk to the creator of this site. But for now, I'm part of a new community where it feels like visiting a wonderful market of people helping one another, while at the same time doing business.

If you are looking for a different place, with a different way of doing business you should definitely spend some time on this site reading and looking at everything --I'm sure you will be as excited as I was.

Your blog is just bursting with goodness! This is a great article too. I've never heard of them, but I love their philosophy. How exciting to get in on the ground floor of something that looks like it will really grow and do well!

I agree-- I'm hooked too on 1kM, even though I haven't yet sold anything and Etsy gets tons more traffic.

But as you say, the philosophy is key - and thanks for posting a link to their manifesto. I shop at farmers markets, I support local businesses and eschew Walmart or the idea of buying everything from China.I want to know where my products, my food comes from. It's about sustainability and the new cultures built around that. This is the appeal of 1000 Markets.